


All creatures great and small

by Dienda



Category: True Detective
Genre: Artistic License: Gardening, Artistic License: Wildlife, Domestic, Don't Try This At Home, Garden Verse, M/M, Unusual Pets, big time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 14:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3449789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dienda/pseuds/Dienda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Carcosa, Marty takes Rust home. They start a garden, all sorts of critters wander in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Archilochus colubris

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackeyedblonde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/gifts).



> This is for Hanna who wanted to see Rust interact with some backyard-dwelling creatures. Thanks for coming up with such an awesome idea, I had a lot of fun with this. Also thanks for being so patient, sorry this took ages.
> 
> If you guys want to read more Rust petting fluffy animals, or just enjoy reading awesome things, go read her fic [Lone Star](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3402062), you won't regret it.

Rust knew Marty’s newfound passion for gardening had more to do with him than with any real interest in nature or goddamned flowerbeds. He had sprung Rust from the hospital over a week ago and the irksome schedule of sleep, pills and TV was already driving Rust stir crazy; he wanted to move around and get out of the house but he could barely take a piss without leaning on Marty. To make matters worse, his partner decided to take some time off from the office ―that too was all about Rust and they both fucking knew it― and kept hovering around him like a worried mother. Rust had had to threaten Marty to piss his bed if he so much as thought about offering him another goddamned pillow.

It was a small miracle they hadn’t killed each other yet.

“I think I’m gonna start a garden.” It was said one evening while they were watching television.

Rust grunted without offering any further comment. On the screen, a snake was coiled around a struggling honey badger and he had no intention of looking away from that.

“How does that sound?” his the other man insisted. “Starting a garden?”

“I don’t know, Marty. It’s your fucking house, do whatever the hell you want.”

 

It wasn’t ‘til Marty came home from the store with _101 Essential Tips of Basic Gardening_ and sat next to him on the couch to leaf through the book so-very-casually that Rust knew for sure he was trying to do the moron’s equivalent of rattling a keychain in front of a crying toddler.

“What do you think about moonflowers?” asked Marty, examining the picture of a white bloom.

“What?”

“Moonflowers. Or something with more color. Maybe in the back, the front yard ain’t that much.” The house wasn’t big, the front was mostly driveway, and it had just one smallish patch of grass under the shade of an oak that didn’t give a fuck about growing straight. “The backyard’s a nice size and you can’t really see it from the street. It’d be nice, wouldn’t it? Something just for us.”

“Just for us?” Rust said as flatly as he could manage.

“I’ve been meaning to do it for a while now.” Marty shrugged, not looking up from a page depicting a voluptuous vine covering one side of a quaint stone cottage. “Call it a born-again urge after walking out of that fucking shithole.”

Rust called it bullshit but refrained from actually saying it out loud. He didn’t really think Marty was gonna do it until two days later when the other man asked to borrow the truck ―it had sat in the parking lot outside the office ‘til Marty was released― and came back with it full of plants and sacks of black soil and mulch. He’d even bought a set of fucking trowels.

“You’re serious.” It wasn’t exactly a question.

“Like a heart attack.” Marty smiled, wide and bright, as he started to unload a small rainbow of flowers.

“Shit.”

 

After dinner, Marty put on a pair of old jeans and a cap, and started gathering tools in the backyard. He made one last trip inside to haul Rust to his feet.

“C’mon, sit outside with me. You’re gonna lose your mind staring at the goddamned walls all day long.” Marty threw a cushion on a lawn chair and handed Rust a glass of sweet tea. “Just sit here looking pretty while I do this, alright?”

For twenty minutes Rust sat there watching while Marty alternated between stabbing the ground with a shovel and squinting down at the open book resting on the grass.

“Hand me the fucking book,” he snapped at last. “I’ll tell you what to do.”

“Alright, boss.” His partner chuckled before passing him the book.

“’Get rid of the sod covering the area you plan to plant.’ So keep digging. Put your back into it.” Marty glared at him. Rust took a sip of tea. “Start loosening the soil while you’re at it.”

Marty was about to snap back when a lonely butterfly that’d been exploring the new saplings came to stand on the crook of Rust’s arm.

“Well, ain’t that precious?”

“Hardly, it probably just wants to drink my sweat.” The day was still hot enough that Rust’s skin was clammy even though he’d only been sitting there doing nothing.

“What?” Marty asked with a perplexed expression, like Rust’s just said the critter was gonna burn the house down.

“Butterflies feed from flowers but they also need sodium, salt.” He watched as the bug opened and closed its black-red wings, brushing the small hairs on his arm and the fabric of his borrowed t-shirt. “They normally just drink blood but I guess sweat’s just as good.”

“Rust, you’re telling me butterflies go around drinking blood?”

“From road kill and shit like that. They’re not fucking vampires, Marty. It ain’t gonna dive straight for your throat.”

“You never know.” Marty had been cutting the distance between them real slow and was now leaning against the railing, shovel still in hand. He scowled at the insect.

In the meantime, the butterfly had unfurled its tongue and was poking at the tender skin at the tail end of Rust’s tattoo. Rust imagined a swarm of myriad-colored butterflies lapping at his wound while he rotted in Carcosa. As if sensing his thoughts, the bug tested its wings and flew back to the buds.

“Well, at least all that time spent watching the Discovery Channel is paying off.” Marty declared before going back to his digging.

 

By the time the sky started to go pink with sunset the left edge of the backyard had a thick strip of cleared, dark soil ready to receive the flowers.

“That’s it,” said Marty as he wiped the sweat off his brow, leaving a dark streak on the flushed skin. He stepped onto the porch and downed the rest of Rust’s glass. “We’ll go on tomorrow. I need a fucking shower; you’re getting one too.”

Rust grunted; showers in his state were a goddamned undignified circus.

“I ain’t asking, Rust. You got licked by a blood-thirsty butterfly, and you didn’t take one yesterday. Keep the wound clean, remember? You’re either walking in there willingly or I’m throwing you in the tub and scrubbing you with a broom.”

He let Marty secure an arm around his waist and lead him inside, the mixed smells of sweat and clean earth putting a drop of the ocean on his tongue.

 

They resumed their work the next day and all days after that. Rust would sit the shadow of the awning, sipping sweet tea and munching on Goldfish crackers while Marty dug around and plunked the plants into the ground. He started writing about the garden in his ledger ―a brand new notebook with no blood on its pages, bought along with a set of color pencils, given and accepted without comment. Rust drew a chart of the backyard and marked the strips along the fence designated for the flowerbeds, documented their progress. He made a sketch of each plant, wrote the name and description, and added whatever information he found on the internet. Yellow, blue, purple pansies with their stained faces, honeysuckle shrubs, aloe, pink hibiscus, a scraggly clementine tree that would grow heavy with fruit one day.

In a few weeks Marty’s backyard started to look like an actual garden, flowers blooming bright, bees and butterflies flickering in the hot summer air. When Rust was strong enough to move around on his own Marty got him an honest-to-god watering can ―tin painted pale blue with a fucking smiley face on one side― and had him water the plants every morning. He’d go barefoot around the fenced yard, tipping his can over each plant, hair around his shoulders like a tangled halo, cigarette hanging limp from the corner of his mouth.

Marty went back to work, little by little; just a few hours at first, bringing files home and making phone calls from the living room until he was back full time, dragging Rust along when the man showed all signs of recovery and no intentions of leaving. They still worked on the garden, on evenings and weekends; pruning, watering, fertilizing, mowing the lawn.

\---

 

 

They saw the first hummingbirds one Saturday morning right in the middle of September. They were sitting in the back porch, the radio carrying old country tunes from the kitchen window. Rust was reading a book, newly shorn hair falling over his forehead, toes dipped in the sunlight that fell across the wooden planks.

“Hey,” said Marty in an awed, hushed tone.

Rust looked up at his partner before following his line of sight to the small dot of emerald and red fluttering over the hibiscus. A blur of wings dipped it up and down as its beak reached for the nectar at the heart of the flowers. A second bird flew over from behind the fence and the two hovered over the bushes before flying off.

“You think they’ll hang around?”

“So long as the flowers are blooming.” Rust went back to his book. “If you want them around all time we should get a feeder.”

That same afternoon, Marty drove them to Home Depot and walked out with the biggest feeder he could find and three bottles of nectar. He filled the thing while Rust hammered a nail into one the porch beams.

Within an hour, a bird glided across the garden to examine the feeder; it approached the plastic flowers cautiously and, deciding they were good, settled on the little perch and started drinking.

\---

 

 

As autumn took over the sweltering heat of summer the flowers continued to bloom, undeterred by the promise of cold whispered in the gray hours before dawn.

Marty was kneeling by the honeysuckles, pruning dry leaves and spreading mulch around the stems. There was a bee buzzing somewhere above his head and two bottles of beer in a little cooler on one of the lawn chairs.

“Look at that,” called Rust from where he had just finished trimming the clementine tree. He pointed his chin to a couple of hummingbirds dancing around each other by the feeder.

Marty lowered the trowel in his hand and turned around. As always, he smiled at the sight. “I reckon someone’s getting courted.”

Rust shook his head. “Keep looking.”

The bigger bird drew one last circle around its mate before going back to the feeder. The smaller animal ―impossibly tiny― hovered in place for a moment before reaching for one of the plastic flowers. The other bird stopped drinking and launched itself at the smaller one, hard enough to jostle the feeder. The tiny bird flew off while the bully returned to the perch.

“Aw, we have an asshole bird.” Marty lamented. He let out a long sigh. “Why am I really not surprised?”

Rust snorted and went back to filling a garbage bag. “It’s definitely in good company.”

“Even birds are jerks now.”

“Anything living can be a jerk, Marty. It’s just that humans are the biggest around.”

The other man poked at the mulch with the tip of the trowel, worrying the inside of his check between his teeth.

“Maybe it’s real hungry,” he suggested, looking back at the porch.

Rust shrugged. “Yeah, must be that.”

\---

 

 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Rust heard Marty’s voice as he closed the front door. He felt his stomach drop and the hairs on his arms stand up; he crossed the house to the backyard, preparing himself to face whomever was upsetting his partner.

When he came barging through the kitchen door, instead of a fight he was greeted by the sight of Marty shouting at a fleck of iridescent green sipping nonchalantly from one of the plastic flowers.

“Hey! What about letting the other guys have a taste? It ain’t your private feeder, you selfish jerk.”

Rust sagged against the doorframe. “Jesus Christ, Marty, I thought I was gonna have to beat someone up.”

The other man gave the bird a last glare and joined him under the awning.

“How can something so little and pretty be such a dick?”

“Little fuckers have to be tough to fight the bees. Nature’s red in tooth and claw and all that shit?” Rust reached into his pocket for a cigarette; he could feel the useless gush of adrenaline dying at the tips of his fingers.

“That’s predators, Rust, not harmless asshole birds that weight less than a marble.” He went inside and leaned on the counter. “You think we should get a second feeder, put it at the edge of the garden, at the front maybe?”

“Mhmm, I reckon that’d send the wrong message, like we’re condoning this sort of behavior.”

“What do you suggest then?”

Rust let out a huff of breath. “Just let it be, Marty. It’s not like he’s guarding that shit all day.”

Marty crossed his arms over his chest. “So we _are_ condoning that sort of behavior.”

“Unless you wanna take aim with a slingshot.” He opened the fridge and fished two beers out, then he tugged Marty into the living room. “Yelling at it ain’t gonna do the trick.”

\---

 

 

They’d been working on an inheritance dispute for almost two weeks, hours upon hours or reviewing paperwork and being cooped in the car driving to interviews with the client’s family at the other end of the goddamned state. Finally, they received their check and shook the client’s hand on a Tuesday morning, somewhere before noon. When they returned to the office Marty took one look at the case folders and the filing cabinet, and shook his head.

“Fuck this.” He pulled his tie loose and opened his shirt.

“What d’you mean?” drawled Rust, already making notes in his work ledger.

“This, fuck it. We can write it up tomorrow; if I see another piece of paper I’m gonna fucking howl. We’re going home.” He pulled the tie all the way off and rolled up his sleeves. “I’m gonna buy you lunch and then we’re gonna sit in the garden ‘til we get hungry again. C’mon.”

And so they ended up in the backyard, lawn chairs dragged onto the grass, bare feet ticking against the blades of grass.

“He’s getting fat.”

Rust didn’t have to look up to know whom Marty was speaking about.

“Hummingbirds can’t get fat, Marty. Their metabolism’s too fast.”

“This one will. Look at him.”

He did. As usual, the hummingbird was standing on the perch, sipping nectar like it was a milkshake. Rust took his color pencils from their elastic band, turned to a new page on his ledger and began drafting the sharp lines of a wing. He’d been sketching the opossum he’d seen lurking around a couple of times but he wanted to capture the ever-changing colors of the bird’s feathers; in a few minutes it would be too dark to keep drawing. “Maybe he’s still a chick and is just growing up.”

“Growing up my ass. He’s getting fat. Because he’s an asshole.”

Marty had changed the hollering for disapproving looks, like he could glare the animal into compliance. Rust wanted to tell him he’d already tried that for seven years and if it hadn’t worked on him it sure as hell wasn’t gonna work on a bird.

When the animal failed to acknowledge the death glares directed at him Marty huffed out a sigh and got to his feet.

“Imma call that Chinese place. Kung Pao?” He leaned over Rust’s shoulder to look at the sketch; his warm fingers running through the short, honey-blond hair ah his nape. “That’s it. Give him some evil eyebrows and that’s him alright, detective.”

Rust snorted but, when Marty disappeared into the kitchen, he drew two thick lines above the hummingbird’s eyes.

\---

 

 

“Aw, shit. Rust!”

Rust blinked at the computer screen, left his cigarette on the ashtray and made his way to the kitchen. For the last two minutes he’d been listening to Marty’s angry whispers; by the sound of it, he was trying to get a bee out of the kitchen. What Rust found instead was his partner holding in his fists the end of the little curtains above the sink while something definitely bigger than a bee flapped and struggled against the thin fabric.

Unsurprisingly, a closer examination showed it was a green-feathered, long-beaked creature.

“What the hell are you doing?” Rust stared flatly at both man and bird.

“Juice ran out so I took the feeder off the hook to refill it.” Marty threw a look at the empty contraption in the sink. “ _Someone_ decided I wasn’t being fast enough and tried to fly inside. Idiot got caught in the curtain.”

“What, you want me to keep him still while you squish him against the glass?”

“Jesus Christ, Rust. No.” Marty looked scandalized. “Just get him out; I don’t want to grab at him and hurt him. You’re better at this delicate sort of thing.”

Rust took the fabric from him and slipped his hand between the folds until he reached the small animal. The hummingbird wriggled between his fingers but he managed to close his hands around it, carefully.

“Wait, let me see him.” The other man tugged at his arm. Rust moved his fingers just enough to let a speck of iridescent green peek through the crook of his thumb. “That’s what you get for being a greedy asshole, wait until I hang the fucking thing, you glutton. Be nice.”

Rust had a sudden image of Marty as a beat cop thirty years ago, scolding a kid for running a light but ultimately letting him go with a warning.

“That all, officer?” he asked, one corner of his mouth curling up.

“Yeah, cut him loose.”

He walked out into the garden, feeling, like a heartbeat, the flickering of wings against his palms. He opened his hands. The bird remained there for a second, like it was adjusting to the sunlight until, finally, it took two steps on Rust’s palm and took off.

Rust went back inside, rubbing with his thumb the patch of skin the hummingbird had stood on. He thought about brittle bones and the ability to fly.

 

 


	2. Didelphimorphia

Rust first saw her one night around the time Marty put the bird feeder up.

They went to bed around eleven; Marty kicked off his slippers, got under the covers and was fast asleep ten minutes later. Rust lay next to him, alternating between looking at the ceiling and closing his eyes to focus on his partner’s breathing.

At two, he gave up on trying to fall asleep and got out of bed slowly, careful not to disturb Marty. He went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water, drank it by the sink, in one long gulp. It was only then that he dared to think about the sleeping man in the bedroom and how, in a matter of months, they’d gone from estranged and wary to lying in a warm tangle in the middle of the bed. Rust wondered if it was anything other than loneliness, convenience on both their parts; if he got up one morning and told Marty he was leaving, would the other man pat his back and see him to the door, or would he ask him to stay?

As he opened the back door and stepped outside, Rust decided perhaps this was the answer; the garden that Marty had started for him, to distract him from his healing flesh, to tame his unhappiness. To give them both something to focus on beside the bad memories, new and old. Something that took both time and effort. Now it was so far from the sad, yellowing patch of grass he’d first encountered; even right this instant, lit with nothing but moonlight, it was something to behold. The last days of summer were trickling by and the flowers thrived in the muggy heat, making the night air heavy with their scents. It made Rust’s brain sparkle with flashes of their unmuted colors; pink, yellow and white, and infinite shades of green.

He lit a cigarette and ambled around like he did every morning when he watered the plants, barefoot, touching leaves and petals; he listened to the song that a solitary cricket chirped somewhere beyond the fence. He was pulling dry leaves off the hydrangeas when he caught something scurrying between the stalks.

At first he thought it was rat, from the glimpse of gray fur and a thin tail, but when the animal ran up the fence to escape the yard Rust saw the black and white face of a small opossum. It landed on the neighbor’s bushes with a soft rustle and darted away.

Rust stood on his tiptoes to peer over the fence but it was gone. He left the small pile of dead leaves in his hand on the porch steps and went back inside.

 

Two nights later, Rust kept an eye on the kitchen window as he washed the dishes from a late dinner. He’d meant to wait in the porch the previous night, see if the little opossum turned up again but Marty had drawn him to the bedroom with a hand under his shirt.

“You expecting someone, what’s the deal with looking outside every thirty seconds?” asked Marty when Rust lifted the curtain for the umpteenth time.

“I saw a possum the other night, though maybe it’d return.” It sounded kinda stupid, said out loud, waiting around liked a kid for a critter to show up.

But Marty just pushed the curtain aside to peer through the glass. “Haven’t seen a possum in a while; had one when I first moved in. Fat fucker kept toppling the trashcan and making a goddamned mess.”

“This one’s still little, maybe just left her mama.”

When they were finished putting the dishes away Rust sent one last glance out the backdoor before flicking the light off.

“Y’know, if you want her to show up just put something out for her,” Marty suggested before making his way to the bathroom.

As his partner got ready for bed, Rust searched the fridge and cupboards for something he could feed the opossum. He fished a chipped plate from one of the cabinets and left it at the edge of the lawn. Then he resumed his place looking outside the window.

“You can’t see shit from here.” Marty was leaning against the doorframe, clad in pajamas and slippers.

“Don’t think she’s gonna come out with me standing there.”

Marty came to stand beside him and squinted at the backyard, pursing his mouth. After a few seconds he straightened and clapped Rust on the side.

“C’mon, let’s make this a proper stakeout.”

“A proper stakeout?” Rust blinked at him but followed as the other man went to their bedroom closet and pulled out two blankets.

Marty laid one of the blankets on the grassy pathway coming from the front yard and motioned for the other man to lie down.

“This is your big plan?” asked Rust, unimpressed. “To hide under a fucking blanket?”

“Next time I’ll make sure to get you some night vision goggles and camo coveralls. Jesus, what kind of P.I. are you?”

Rust muttered under his breath but dropped to the ground. With the gate open, the trail was barely wide enough for both of them, pressed together with the house on one side and the fence on the other, dark blanket thrown over their heads. Marty had left the office lamp on so the lawn was cast in a soft yellow glow, their hiding place obscured by the shadow of the porch.

“Well, this ain’t conspicuous at all.” Their legs were sticking out the end of both blankets.

“This is a possum we’re trying to fool, Rust, not a rocket scientist. It’s gonna work just fine.”

“They’re smarter than dogs.”

“Dogs aren’t that smart. What’re you giving her?” Marty changed the subject before Rust could start arguing about the cleverness of dogs.

“Apple slices and some granola.”

“Critter can eat anything and you choose fucking granola?”

“Well, we don’t have much in the way of fresh fruit; omnivore doesn’t mean I can just give her a fucking slice of pizza.”

“Won’t blame her if she doesn’t show up.”

They fell into a long, huffy silence.

“This is the most ridiculous fucking thing I’ve ever done,” grumbled Rust after a couple of minutes.

“This ain’t the most ridiculous thing I’ve done. Hell, it ain’t even the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done with you, Crash.” Marty let out a sigh. “God, remember the time we chased that asshole through the fucking swamp? We should’ve gotten a medal for that shit.”

Rust’s shoulders started shaking with laughter.

“More like an Olympic medal; that was some quality gymnastics we pulled that day. I never imagined you could jump like that, Marty.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he snapped though the last word got pulled into a snicker. “You’re gonna scare her off.”

They waited almost an hour; Marty started to doze off, chin resting on his folded hands. Rust was about to shake him awake and drag him inside when there was a low, scuffing sound from the far side of the fence. Marty must have felt him going still, he opened his eyes with a sigh but remained silent. They watched as the opossum emerged from under a heavy cloud of blue lilacs, an errant flower clinging lopsidedly to the fur of her head.

“Look at that, she even dolled up for your date, Rust.” Marty whispered the words right against his ear.

Rust’s lips curled up at the sight. She approached the food carefully and sniffed the fruit, pink nose twitching in interest before she started biting on an apple slice. She was around the size of a squirrel, had to hold the wedges with her little hands before fitting them in her mouth.

“Goddamn, I need a picture of that.” Marty fumbled under the blanket, covered his head completely while he struggled with the phone.

The little opossum stopped eating and raised her head, alert.

“Keep fucking still.” Rust pulled the fabric lower over his face and tried to flatten himself against the ground. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Muting this shit.”

Marty poked the cell phone lens through a fold in the blanket and snapped his picture. She’d gone back to her food, picking raisins out of the clumps of oat.

 

Next morning, while Marty was busy reading the paper, Rust opened the photo; it was askew and almost too dark but her light fur shone with the lamplight, blue flower hanging behind her ear. He sent it to himself.

\---

 

 

Rust started leaving food for the small opossum, not enough to discourage foraging, just enough to keep her coming back. She didn’t show up every night ―sometimes almost a week would go by before she poked around the lawn again― but Rust kept at it. He started to write down the things she liked best: grapes and strawberries, she’d eat every last piece. She loved peaches when they were heavy with juice. He tried giving her dead crickets and worms from the pet store but she seemed to prefer catching them herself. Various types of cheese where rejected after a couple of bites. She made a mess of a watermelon but didn’t actually eat it. Surprisingly, she seemed fond of the chocolate Teddy Grahams Marty insisted on including just to see her grab ‘em.

Around November the hummingbirds started building a nest in the clementine tree; Rust made sure put the possum’s food on the other side of the lawn, near the porch, so she wouldn’t get any ideas about poaching the eggs.

\---

 

 

“Why did we just get a package from the National Opossum Society?” Marty came in from the driveway, holding a FedEx box along with the rest of their mail.

“I joined the National Opossum Society,” Rust said around a cigarette, without looking away from the computer screen.

“Of course you did.” He gave the box a tentative shake. “Do you get a cap and a t-shirt? A possum-friend ID card?”

“Mmmh, just a bunch of info but I’ll suggest it to them.”

Marty left the box by Rust’s elbow. “You do that.”

\---

 

 

The first week of January Rust got up with the gray morning, grabbed his truck keys and drove out to Texas, to a city and a headstone he hadn’t visited in over twenty years. He spent the day sitting by Sophia’s grave, finally saying all the things denial and grief had never let him even articulate. He loved her always. He missed her every day. Being her father was the best thing that’d ever happened to him. He told her, almost shyly, of a small house with a secret garden and the man who came back to him.

At sundown Rust felt too drained and too heavy to make the drive back; he spent the night at a motel, watching the light dim and change outside the window. He fell asleep somewhere before dawn and woke up to the lazy winter sun hanging bright in the sky. He took a quick shower and started his way back home.

 

When he opened the front door he was greeted with the hum of the radio and the smell of fresh cooking coming from the kitchen. Marty was in front of the stove, stirring tomato sauce into a skillet. Rust leaned against the doorway, without saying a word; his stomach groaned, reminding him he hadn’t eaten in almost two days.

“Hey,” Marty smiled at him. It was said lightly, like Rust had just been in the next room, but that single word carried some of the gentleness of the first night of this new life, of the first morning in the garden. “Shrimp étouffée alright for dinner?”

Rust nodded. He knew he looked like hell; he’d stared at his reflection in the small bathroom mirror at the motel. He was haggard and unshaven, his eyes rimmed red, but he felt less tired just looking at the other man.

“Anything interesting?” he asked.

Marty shrugged as he checked on the rice.

“Little Possy came over for poker night but I told her we were one player short, so we just chatted over a bowl of worm salad.” Sure enough, her little plate sat on the kitchen rack instead of in its usual place under the sink. “Hey, she really liked those red grapes you got.”

Rust crossed the kitchen in two strides and kissed him.

\---

 

 

Winter settled heavy in the sharp bite of the wind and the leaden clouds that seemed to have taken permanent residence in the colorless sky. The garden was mostly leaves now, all the flowers saving their buds for the return of spring; only the tiny, white blossoms of the clementine covered its branches like fallen snow.

“It’s getting real cold,” said Rust one chilly morning. He had his hands wrapped around a cup of coffee.

Marty raised his eyebrows at him.

“Yeah, this means I can finally get you a proper coat instead of that bullshit canvas jacket you insist is warm enough?”

Rust shook his head. “Possum fur is not that thick.”

There was an understanding nod. Marty knitted his eyebrows as he took a steaming sip of coffee.

“So, you gonna try to wrestle her into a sweater?”

Rust scoffed. “She’s got fifty very sharp teeth, Marty; only thing I could wrestle her into is biting my fingers off.”

“Well, you could offer her a room but I don’t think she’d be too keen on coming in.”

A thought sparkled in Rust’s brain.

“Y’know, Marty, that’s not such a bad idea.”

There were boxes in the garage. Rust found one sturdy enough, just the right size. Marty gave him a couple of old towels, soft and threadbare with use. He lined the box with one of them, stapling the fabric to the cardboard as an insulation of sorts; the other he folded into a bed. After making sure the opening was wide enough he taped one of the flaps shut so it’d stay warm once she was in.

Finally he took it outside, left it on the grass next to the porch, fruit in front of it.

“You think she’ll come?” asked Marty as he watched the proceedings from one of the lawn chairs.

“I hope so.”

“She’ll stay a while?”

“I don’t know. Possums are on the move all the time, but maybe she’ll stick around for the rest of the winter.”

“Well,” Marty shrugged. “She keeps the slugs off my flowers, she’s welcome to stay as long as she wants.”

The opossum didn’t show up that first night. The following days it drizzled on and off, day and night. Rust moved to box onto the porch, threw a cut plastic sheet on it to keep it dry.

 

“Rust! Rust!” It was half a shout and half a whisper, coming from the kitchen.

“What’s with the whispering?” Rust asked as he made his way from the bathroom. “Are you spying on the neighbors again? I’ve told you, Marty, this isn’t fucking Rear Window.”

Marty scoffed. “You can’t even see the neighbors’ windows from here.” He waved his partner closer and lifted the curtain over the sink. “Look who checked in last night.”

The fruit outside the box was gone and inside, poking between the folds of the towel, a white, pointy face and a tiny, pink nose.

 

She slept all day. They kept the backdoor closed, the small radio on the kitchen counter stayed off. In the early evening Rust took a handful of strawberries from the fridge and walked around the side of the house to the garden.

Marty watched him from the backdoor. Rust approached the porch carefully, slow, slow, stood on the first step and reached out his hand to deliver the fruit inside the plastic saucer before retreating, just as silently.

It was the first time that Marty could actually picture him breaking and entering Tuttle’s mansions, half ninja, half cat burglar, climbing the walls and sneaking in through windows. Only that image didn’t hold a candle to this one: Rust practically holding his breath to avoid waking the little possum sleeping on their porch.

“That’s a real cozy Bed & Breakfast you’re running there, baby” he said when the other man came back inside.

Rust narrowed his eyes at him and Marty couldn’t stop the huff of delighted laughter that burst out of him.

“Fuck you, man,” grunted Rust, he lowered his head and looked away.

“Hey!” Marty grabbed him by the waist and pulled him close. “I ain’t mocking you, I ain’t. I’m― I’m just being happy you’re you.” He rested his forehead against the back of Rust’s neck. “Sometimes I forget you’re part crazy woodsman, roaming the forest tracking deer and shit. That you actually know what to do with nature. God, I’d have loved to see you in the wild.”

“I ain’t a fucking wolf, Marty.” Rust snorted but finally relaxed against him. “You wouldn’t last a day in the woods.”

“I wouldn’t, that’s why I’d keep you around.” He pressed a kiss into the warm skin beneath his lips. “You’d make sure I stayed alive.”

Rust held onto Marty’s arms and said nothing.

\---

 

 

She kept coming back, sometimes carrying leaves clutched in her tail to add to her bedding. She’d stay in the box cleaning her fur until it was dark enough to go foraging, and saunter back around dawn. Marty took a black marker to the box; he scribbled ‘Holiday Inn’ on the closed flap, along with a doodle of an opossum.

One evening, Rust was filling the saucer with berries and almonds when the box shook with a light rattle. The opossum’s face appeared from under the folds of the green towel, mouth open in a wide yawn.

Rust froze, his hand still around the plate. If he made to move away she could get startled and run, or bite him.

The animal didn’t seem bothered by his presence, though. She gave the berries a cursory sniffing and began to eat. Her fur brushed against the side of his hand and Rust didn’t resist the urge to pet her. He reached out carefully, ran two fingers along her flank. Her whole body twitched but she didn’t move away or hissed at him.

Rust ran his hand through the gray fur of her back; it was thick and soft, it reminded him of a fox coat he had as a kid.

She let him pet her for a couple of minutes before scurrying through the railing and crossing the yard in a slow waddle. Rust watched her climb over the fence and disappear into the falling night.

He sat down on the wooden steps and waited for the stars to come out. Marty joined him a few minutes later, bearing a smile and a couple of beers.


	3. Corvus corax

While Marty showered and dressed Rust started the brewer, filled his watering can and went round the garden raining cold water on both the waking plants and his toes. Spring was still a couple of weeks away but the garden was already recovering from the yellowish tint it had sported during the colder days of winter; Marty had plied it full of vitamins and fertilizer the previous weekend and already a handful of shy blooms could be seen emerging from their beds of green.

He was putting the can away next to the rolled up hose when something fluttered over the fence and fell on the sod. At first glance Rust thought it was a garbage bag that’d been tossed around by the wind but an urgent cry made him approach the mess of black to discover it was a bird, big and desperate, a six-pack ring stuck around the feathers of its neck and the tip of one wing.

“Hey, it’s alright.” Rust crouched down, feeling his skin stretch taut at the scar in his gut. He made to touch the bird but the animal let out a warning caw; he held out his open palms for a second. “Ain’t gonna hurt you, just wanna help.”

The bird ―a raven, on closer inspection― stopped trashing and only gave a tiny trill when Rust picked it up and held it against his side. As all birds, it was much lighter than it looked but it still was a warm, solid weight where it rested over its inked cousin on Rust’s forearm. Carefully, he folded the wing until it was free of the plastic ring. The hoop around its neck was stuck tight, it was probably beginning to constrict the animal’s throat.

“It’s alright. Just stay still, kiddo.” Rust reached into the pocket of his robe for the switchblade he kept there. “We’ve got this.”

He cut the plastic and the bird struggled out of his grip. Rust let the blade fall to the grass and raised his hands again, bunching the ring in his fist. “There you go.”

The raven stretched its wings as if to check it was really free and chirped softly. A pair of black eyes studied Rust for a moment before flying off.

 

When Rust came back inside Marty was already by the kitchen counter pouring himself a cup of coffee; he’d drink that green tea bullshit the rest of the day but he still needed his morning cup of joe.

Rust didn’t even notice he still had the plastic ring in his hand until he opened his fist to grab a mug and it sprung to the floor.

Marty raised an eyebrow. “You starting early? And, was that a fucking crow?”

“Raven, got caught in this shit.” Rust picked it up and threw it in the trash.

“I swear to God, Rust,” Marty began in mock annoyance. “Every time you go out there you find a new critter to feed.”

He didn’t need to mention the turtledove nestling that’d fallen out of the tree by the front door and Rust had kept warm until the parents took it back to the nest not one week ago.

“Didn’t feed it, just cut it free.”

\---

 

 

The raven started showing up more or less regularly. At first he’d lurked from the neighbor’s tree while Rust watered the plants every morning but, after a couple of weeks, he’d perch on the fence while the two men worked on mowing the lawn or tilling the soil for the new yearlings.

The first time it happened Marty took one look at the bird, stopped his digging, and glared at Rust from under the brim of his straw hat.

Rust answered with a languid, unimpressed look and went back to painting the porch railing.

 

“Don’t he have a flock, or a fucking murder or something?” asked Marty one evening when they got back from the office. They’d pulled into the driveway to find the raven sitting on the truck’s roof.

Rust squinted at the bird while his partner opened the front door. “Mmhm, an unkindness. Or a conspiracy. Only crows have murders.”

“Ain’t that reassuring?” Marty muttered as he took his shoes off. “What the fuck are they conspiring about, pecking everyone’s eyes out?”

“Ravens have a complex social structure, a language even. If someone threatens that raven you can bet your ass he’s gonna tell his pals about it. They’d recognize the guy even years after.”

“So he wouldn’t take kindly to being shooed off with a broom.” Marty plopped down on the armchair.

“You try to hurt one and the whole group is gonna go all Hitchcock on you next time you step out.”

“Of fucking course.”

“They’re extremely intelligent animals, Marty.” Rust was peeking at the bird through the thin living room curtain. “They can imitate other birds or even human speech, solve puzzles, and create attachments with other animals. They even have dialects.”

Marty hummed at that. “Maybe you should ask him to give the hummingbird a stern lecture.”

\---

 

 

It was somewhere past eleven. Rust and Marty were already in bed, not asleep yet but well on their way, facing each other, eyes closed against the dark indigo. They we talking softly ―dinner, the stuff that needed be done the following day― just words to lull themselves, their mumbling becoming slower and slower.

That’s when it came: a loud, shrill caw they’ve come to know all too well.

Marty didn’t open his eyes. “Well, that ain’t creepy at all.”

The raven cawed again, more urgent.

“He’s calling me.” Rust was already getting out of bed.

“That’s even creepier, fuck.” Marty followed his partner down the hall. Before he could stop him, Rust was out the kitchen door. “Goddammit. Rust!”

The spring had brought with it a round of heavy rain and right now the night was damp with a steady drizzle. And of course that fool of a man had walked out in nothing but a wife-beater and boxers.

Rust came back inside with a flurry of black in his arms and another flapping behind him.

“What the fuck?” Marty clocked the bigger bird that landed on the table as their regular guest but the slightly smaller bundle tucked against Rust’s chest was a complete stranger. “Oh, great. He brought a friend.”

“One of those plastic shits,” explained Rust as he made his best to soothe the bird. Sure enough, the animal had a beer yoke tangled around its feet.

“You know, for such smart birds these morons get stuck in that shit all the time.”

“He was smart enough to remember I cut him free.” Rust pointed his chin at their raven with something that looked a lot like pride.

“Perfect.” Marty rubbed at his eyes. “That means we’re listed as the goddamned emergency services in the avian yellow pages?”

Rust didn’t cut the ring this time; he held the bird still and untwisted the plastic carefully. Once free, the bird hopped on the table, next to its pal. He opened the window over the sink in case they wanted to leave; the new raven perched on the sill but remained there. Marty had disappeared into the hall, he came back with a couple of towels.

“Get that wet shit off, you idiot.” He draped one towel around Rust’s shoulders. He didn’t attempt to dry either of the birds, he just unfolded the other towel and left it on the table.

Rust chucked his shirt and began drying his hair, eyes jumping between the two birds. Their regular examined the cloth on the table before settling down on it.

“They’re fucking huge.” Marty was scowling at the birds from the kitchen doorway, biting at his lips. “I suppose nudging ‘em out the window ain’t an option?”

“Let them be, it’s fucking raining.”

Rust retrieved his ledger from the bedroom and began sketching their guests. After a couple of minutes of nothing but the dimmed static of water, Marty sighed.

“Well, I’m going back to bed. Y’all have fun.” He ruffled Rust’s drying hair. “Hope you still have eyes in the morning.”

\---

 

 

Rust dropped a beef package into their shopping cart and went back to browsing the shelves with cat-like disinterest. There was nothing new at the office so Marty had declared a shopping trip was in order. Now they were taking a lazy kind of tour through the Piggly Wiggly, picking up shit they didn’t need, none too eager to go back under the mid-morning sun.

“Are you sure we’re gonna eat all that meat, cowboy?” Marty asked, eyeing the slab of beef.

“Ravens eat meat too,” was Rust’s explanation.

“Of course, he’s carnivorous,” Marty muttered under his breath.

“Omnivorous.”

“Little Possy is omnivorous and you don’t see her demanding blood sacrifices.” The opossum had moved out of her box at the end of winter but still showed up for a treat every once in a while.

Rust snorted. “Something tells me she wouldn’t think twice before ripping a rat in two if it intruded on her territory. Yéil can’t live off fruit and bugs alone.”

“Who the hell is― aw _fuck_.” Marty let out a long sigh and shook his head. “Alright.”

“What?”

“Nothing. If you’ve already given him a name it’s too late to say anything.” Truth to be told ―name or no name― it had been already too late a couple of months ago.

“What kind of fucking name is Yetl?” Marty asked a few aisles later.

“Yéil.” Rust repeated, low. He turned to examine a display of soup cans with far more attention than it deserved. “Sometimes my pop traded with the Tlingit villagers. The women told me stories while he haggled with the men. Yéil Naa, the raven clan.”

Marty refrained from making a comment about having a raven named Raven, Rust seldom talked about his childhood beyond vaguely unsettling comments and straight-up fucked up anecdotes.

“I like it,” he declared. “It’s miles better than Black or Nevermore, or some inane shit like that.”

Rust only grunted in response.

 

A few days later Marty came back from another trip to the store with a melamine bowl, Peter Rabbit stamped on the bottom.

“For the bird,” he explained when Rust cocked an eyebrow at the dish. “Found it on sale, it was the only one without a superhero on it. Yéil don’t strike me as a Capitan America kind of guy.”

Rust’s mouth curl into a half-smile. “He likes him well enough,”

\---

 

 

Rust made a perch out of a broken branch he’d found after a storm and fitted it on the back porch. He’d feed Yéil every morning: pecans and blackberries, beef and chicken guts and crackers dipped in blood.

The bird was playful enough to indulge Rust’s curiosity. Yéil spent a couple of evenings getting treats out of various flasks with nothing but a stick. He could undo zippers and work the garden tap. Rust got a kid’s memory card game and would sit cross-legged on the floor with the cards spread in front of him while the raven pointed with his beak. They played fetch and something that Marty was pretty sure counted as hide-and-seek.

Every time he flew away Yéil would glide in circles and do flips in the air. Sometimes he’d followed them all the way to the office, gliding above the Cadillac like an ominous kite.

 

In May they installed a birdbath under the growing shade of the clementine, something to mark a year of staring the garden, of coming home in mostly one piece. Yéil liked to splash around in the basin, looking as dumb as a grown ass man playing in a kiddie pool.

One morning Marty came out back to find Rust, stoned faced, waving the hose around while the bird rolled around under the spray like a goddamned puppy.

\---

 

 

Marty was still in his pajamas when he came out that morning; he stepped over the paper lying on the mat and went to his car. It’d been raining when they came home last night and he’d chosen to leave his briefcase in the car before making a run for the door.

He was reaching into the backseat when he saw someone approaching from the other side of the street.

“Hey there, Mister Hart. Good morning.” It was Mrs. Dallier, from the house right across from them. She was in a purple robe and sweats, her hair up in a messy bun. Marty had never seen her outside so early.

“Good morning.”

“I wanted to talk to you.” She looked around like she was scared someone might be spying on them and took another step closer. “There’s this bird around, huge, black thing.”

Marty sighed, or course the bird was terrorizing the neighbors now.

“It’s been bothering my Twinkie. It’ll swoop down while my poor puppy is in the yard and drive him crazy.” Twinkie was a dainty little Pomeranian with fluffy golden fur and a rhinestone studded collar. “It sits on the grass ‘til my baby runs at it and then just flies up, over and over. Other times it’ll chase Twinkie around the yard.”

“It sounds to me like they’re playing tag,” Marty said with a reassuring smile.

“No, it distresses Twinkie, I know it,” she insisted. Marty wondered how the fuck would she know, goddamned dog had a permanent terrified expression. “I’m not sure, but I think it opened the screen door the other day.” She clutched the collar of her robe. “It’s fixing to eat my Twinkie, I know it.”

Marty made his best to suppress a snort. Jesus Christ. He could already picture Rust high-fiving the fucking bird for this.

“Now, I’m telling you this, Mister Hart, because I’ve seen it hanging ‘round your place.”

“I’m sure they’re just playing,” he said once more, bracing himself for the imminent tirade about keeping their huge, creepy bird away from her ball of fluff.

“It think we should call the wildlife center,” Mrs. Dallier suggested, nodding her head. So she didn’t know Yéil was theirs. “Before it attacks any of us.”

“It’s alright,” he began in his best kind-authority-figure tone of voice. “I assure you little Twinkie is perfectly safe, the bi―”

He heard the rustle of wings and, sure enough, not a second later Yéil appeared from somewhere behind the house and perched on the side of the truck bed. Marty shut his eyes for a second; by that timing alone you could tell this was Rust Cohle’s bird. He cawed softly at Marty and fluttered his wings ― all fifty fucking inches of them― in greeting.

Mrs. Dallier had let out a strangled gasp when she first saw the bird but now she seemed frozen, green eyes wide, mouth open, and one foot behind her like she’d had the impulse to run but was too startled to act on it.

Marty let out an awkward sort of laugh.

“Hey there, buddy,” he said, hoping to establish Yéil wasn’t the murderous, Pomeranian-snatching demon Mrs. Dallier had just been talking about. He reached out his hand and brushed the back of his finger down the raven’s breast, getting another happy chirp.

He turned to look at the woman. She was still wearing the same alarmed expression but now it was directed at him.

“He’s not a bird of prey. I promise he’s just being playful with your dog,” Marty began again. He was smiling so hard he was probably going to get nerve damage from it.

Before he could get any further, the front door opened and Rust emerged from the house, wrapped in an old robe, bony gams peeking out of a pair of Marty’s shorts, cup of coffee in hand. The raven took off in his direction, landed just as Rust was straightening from picking up the newspaper.

“Mornin’,” Rust greeted, raising the hand with the paper. Then he went back inside, Yéil perched firmly on his shoulder.

“I swear it’s fine.” Marty turned on his most reassuring smile. By now Mrs. Dallier’s face said she was maybe deciding they’d joined a cult ―which, considering their personal history, was a little fucking insulting. “He’s perfectly tame.”

Marty reckoned he didn’t need to clarify he was talking only about the bird.

\---

 

 

As a rule, Yéil would bring them gifts almost every time he showed up for a meal, like maybe it was his idea of lunch money, small trinkets that Rust stored in an old can of coffee he kept next to the desk in the study. There were coins and a handful of golf balls, buttons, rhinestones, safety pins; after Easter, the raven turned up with a couple of painted eggs.

“I don’t suppose he finds all this stuff just lying on the ground,” asked Marty, suspicious.

Today’s gift was a pair gold earrings with two sizable pear-shaped pearls hanging down. Yéil had brought jewelry before ―toy rings, fantasy charms― nothing quite so flashy.

Rust shrugged. “People drop their shit everywhere. Remember the day you lost your keys.”

Marty narrowed his eyes. “I’m still not convinced he wasn’t the one who took ‘em in the first place.”

“He didn’t.” Rust finished his examination of the earrings and slipped them into his pocket.

“And he ain’t the one who somehow opens the neighbor’s screen door to play with fucking Twinkie.”

Rust had the gall to shrug again. “People install shitty doors all the time.”

“Right.”

 

A couple of days later, when the bird settled on his perch in the back porch, Rust filled Peter Rabbit with diced meat and got a ring in exchange. Marty’s ring to be precise. His partner had spent all morning trimming the bougainvillea they’d planted in the spring and that was already threatening to bury the porch under a solid mass of purple flowers.

“You made a stop to the bedroom first?” He asked the bird. Marty had left his ring on the nightstand before going out, Rust was sure of that. Right now he was out front washing the Cadillac. “Fuck, you’re gonna get us both in trouble, man.”

Rust put the ring back on the nightstand and made sure to close the window this time.

\---

 

 

The alarm clock didn’t go off that morning; they’d spent half the night shadowing a cheating husband ―Marty accepted all infidelity cases like it was some sort of penance― and had stumbled back home well after three. They weren’t meeting the client until that afternoon so there was no need to have an early morning.

When Rust first opened his eyes the room was already full of light but his head still felt heavy with sleep. He just rolled over and rested his head on Marty’s shoulder, drew him close with an arm around his ribs.

Marty shifted until his hand was on Rust’s waist.

“Hey baby,” He mumbled and fell right back into a dream.

They stayed like that, boneless and warm, drifting in and out of an easy, gold-tinted sleep.

Somewhere around mid-morning there was the sound of wings flapping outside their window, followed by a tentative chirp.

“Talk about bad omens,” muttered Marty.

Rust opened one eye; sure enough, there was a raven-shaped shadow just outside the glass.

“Lots of cultures consider ravens a sign of good luck,” he said, smiling when he felt the other man scoff. “Where I come from the raven is a sacred animal. The bringer of light.”

“How’s that?”

“It’s a Tlingit myth. There was this old man, Naas-sháki Shaan,” he began, words landing slow on Marty’s chest. “He kept the Moon, the Sun and the stars in his house, hidden inside three wooden boxes; the world outside only knew darkness. Raven wanted there to be light so he devised a plan. The old man had a daughter; Raven transformed himself into a single hemlock needle and dropped into her cup of water. She drank the water and became pregnant.”

“Holy shit.”

Rust’s lips curled into a grin; he’d known Marty would have something to say about that. “In time she gave birth to a baby boy―”

“Who’s actually a big, black bird.”

“Mmhm. One day the kid started crying and crying; now, the old man loved his grandson very much so he gave him the box with the stars to play. Raven opened the box and let the stars escape through the chimney. A little later, the boy started crying again, so the old man gave him the box with the moon."

“Jesus, grandpas are such suckers.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you in a couple of years.”

Marty smacked his shoulder halfheartedly. “Hush, you. Go on with the story.”

“Raven opened the lid, let the Moon roll out the door and, up it went.” Rust gave a languid flourish with his hand before letting it drop back to his partner’s side.

“Let me guess, the kid kept crying.”

“The kid kept crying.” Marty muttered something like _no shit_ behind his head. “The old man gave him the last box, but not before stopping up the chimney and closing the door. As soon as he had the box, Raven transformed back into his true form, grasped it in his beak and flied out the window. Once outside he opened the box and the Sun hangs in the sky ever since.”

Marty hummed. “And then he landed in our garden with a plastic ring around his neck.”

“Something like that.”

“That’s a hell of a tale.”

Rust shrugged. “Most cosmogonies sound like acid trips, man.”

Marty stretched against him with a big yawn, turned until he was facing Rust. He slipped his hand under his wife-beater. “You should tell me more stories, kinda like to hear your voice like this.”

Rust snorted. “I’ll remember that next time you tell me to shut up.”

Just as Marty was starting to trail a line of kisses up Rust’s neck there was a knock on the window.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Then there was a scrapping noise followed by a series of suspicious clacks. “Is he trying to open the fucking window?”

“He’s probably wondering what we’re doing in bed at this hour.”

Marty sighed tragically and plopped onto his back.

“Well, I was gonna suggest a mid-morn quickie but consider the mood dampened.” He planted a kiss on the side of Rust’s nose before getting up. “At least he’s already opened the box with the Sun.”

Rust heard the bathroom door open and shut. He dragged himself out of bed, put on a pair of sweats and went to the window. He opened it. Yéil was perched on the sill. The man whistled softly and the raven returned the greeting.

“Hey there, you heard us talking about you?” He ran the tip of his finger down the bird’s bill.

“Imma start on breakfast. Does he want breakfast?” Marty called on his way to the kitchen.

Rust offered his forearm and Yéil hopped on it without hesitation.

“Yeah, we’re coming.”

 

 


End file.
